"I expect ShapeShift be shut down by the government"

Bitcoin.com spoke with Wall Street veteran and author of the LibertyLifeTrail blog, Tone Vays, on the recent Panama Papers leak, using Bitcoin as a safe haven, and why he believes 90% of blockchain companies right now are “meaningless.”

https://news.bitcoin.com/tone-vays-90-bitcoin-cos-meaningless/

Everything you need to know about the Lightning network

The civil war of Bitcoin has come to a truce. The debate on how to scale Bitcoin hasn’t exactly resolved, but one thing seems to be certain: A scaling solution must be found. The Bitcoin network can currently handle only a handful of transactions per second, whereas classic payment providers process tens of thousands transactions per second. For a global network with potentially billions of users, Bitcoin needs to increase the number of possible transactions drastically. One of the most promising solutions is the Lightning network. In this post, we will give an overview of the state of the Lightning network and introduce some projects that are working on making it become a reality.

http://about.bitwa.la/the-state-of-the-lightning-network/

SBI Leads Japanese Bitcoin Exchange’s $27 Million Series C

Japan-based bitcoin exchange bitFlyer has raised ¥3bn, or just shy of $27m, in a Series C funding round led by Venture Labo Investment and SBI Investment, the venture capital division of financial services conglomerate SBI Group.

http://www.coindesk.com/sbi-leads-japanese-bitcoin-exchanges-27-million-series-c/

UK Treasury Won't Seek AML Rules for Bitcoin Wallet Providers

The UK Treasury has said that it won’t seek to impose anti-money laundering (AML) rules on digital currency wallet providers in a bid to avoid overburdening those services.

http://www.coindesk.com/uk-treasury-we-wont-regulate-bitcoin-wallet-providers/

The Tokyo Whale Is Quietly Buying Up Huge Stakes in Japan Inc.

“For those who want shares to go up at any cost, it’s absolutely fantastic that the BOJ is buying so much,” said Shingo Ide, chief equity strategist at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo. “But this is clearly distorting the sanity of the stock market.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-24/the-tokyo-whale-is-quietly-buying-up-huge-stakes-in-japan-inc


Central Bank goes crazy. We know the end.

...und am Ende weint wieder einer 

just 3 years ago that was not imaginable  - people said: "maybe in 10 years Steam will take Bitcoin!"

great achievement! 

Distributed ledger technology – panacea or flash in the pan?

Conclusion

DLT has a disruptive potential in the financial market. Like the hammer that shatters glass yet can forge steel, it may bring advantages to some actors and disintermediate others.

From a central bank perspective, in the context of our strategic reflections on the future of Eurosystem’s market infrastructures, we are certainly open to new technologies and, like many market players, have launched some experimental work with DLT.

Bringing our Eurosystem market infrastructures on DLT automatically means bringing central bank money on DLT. This may have implications on the central bank functions which go beyond the operational and technical sphere. It is therefore important to structure the discussion along the lines of who could access the central bank ledger.

We very much welcome the industry’s efforts to work on standardisation and interoperability both in the payments and in the post-trade domain.

It is clear that we have a lot of more thinking to do on DLT-related questions and their policy implications. Before wielding the hammer we have to make sure that we have a strong anvil.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2016/html/sp160425_2.en.html


DLT - SO HOT RIGHT NOW! 

Bitcoins - A Global Perspective

Bitcoin is unique not because it is a virtual currency,
but because it is proof of concept of a decentralized
non-issued electronic currency. Bitcoin has a number
of weaknesses and may have long-term viability
issues for the economic reasons referred to earlier.

But it shows that virtual currencies can and probably
will succeed in time, as innovators build on the
lessons from the Bitcoin experience. The evidence
suggests that virtual currencies – Bitcoin and
others – might play an increasing role in payments
system, worldwide. According to CoinDesk, they
are being used in North and South America,
Europe, Africa, and Asia. The number of companies
accepting Bitcoin September 2014 soared to over
80,000.

https://www.zebpay.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Bitcoins.pdf

Bitstamp to Become the First Nationally Licensed Bitcoin Exchange and Launches BTC/EUR Trading

We are very excited to share with you today that Bitstamp has been granted a license by the Luxembourg government to be a fully regulated and licensed exchange in the EU.

https://www.bitstamp.net/article/bitstamp-first-nationally-licensed-btc-exchange/

Japan OKs recognizing virtual currencies as similar to real money

The Cabinet on Friday approved a set of bills to help banking groups expand their information technology businesses and to recognize virtual currencies as having a function similar to real money.

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/04/business/tech/japan-oks-recognizing-virtual-currencies-similar-real-money/

Venture Capital Investments in Bitcoin and Blockchain Companies

https://www.weusecoins.com/en/venture-capital-investments-in-bitcoin-and-blockchain-companies/


Nice overview.

Bitcoin is the Sewer Rat of Currencies

When computer scientist Andreas Antonopoulos first heard about bitcoin in 2011 he dismissed it as “nerd money.” Six months later he happened on bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto’s now-legendary white paper from November 2008. This nine-page, innocent-looking document was a blueprint for replacing large swaths of the financial services industry with a globally-distributed encryption-based transaction network that wasn’t owned by anyone.

https://medium.com/institute-for-the-future/bitcoin-is-the-sewer-rat-of-currencies-b89819cdf036#.g48bz5a5d